So, RRS is the solution.¬† If you have medium format to scan, I'd say that t Beseler Dual Mode Slide Duplicator is best, or maybe a Kenro.¬† Available every now and then on Ebay.Peter

I am awaiting the arrival next week of a Beseler Deluxe Dual Mode Slide Duplicator Model # 4102 which is coming with a Rodenstock 75mm f/4 APO-Rodagon lens. ($114.99 for both on eBay) Will report back in a couple of weeks as to how it works .

I bought one of those things new over twenty years ago primarily for making internegs. I still have it along with pretty much every accessory available. I'll be amazed if you're not extremely happy with it.

The universal camera mount lets you mount just about any kind of camera with a macro rig rather than the standard bellows setup. That along with the 4x5 illuminator will let you copy just about any film up to 4x5 with just about any camera setup.

I don't know model numbers but the original models (of which mine is one) had a wiring problem with the strobe circuitry. Beseler issued a recall. The fix was very simple but if you by any chance get one that wasn't modified it can be a major safety issue. The unit works perfectly if plugged into a properly wired three prong outlet. But if you happen to use it on an outlet not properly wired (open ground or reversed hot/common prongs) you can send VERY high voltage through the sync cable. I knew about the issue but kept putting off getting mine fixed because my outlets were properly wired. I moved it one day and happened to plug it into an incorrectly wired outlet. It worked ok but I could feel an electrical charge when touching the camera. When finished i unplugged the sync cord. When the sync connector came into contact with the metal base of the unit all hell broke loose. The sync cord was welded to the metal housing of the base. That finally prompted me to order the upgrade parts I'm glad that me or my camera wasn't in the middle of that circuit. No damage was done except for the destroyed sync cable. It could have easily been much worse. The fix was very simple. I don't recall the details but it was a matter of soldering one additional component to a circuit board (or sending it in and getting Beseler to do it). The point of this story is to warn you against connecting your whizbang new exotic digicam to the sync circuit without proper isolation (SafeSync or some sort of wireless rig). And/or make sure yours is a corrected version and that you test your power outlet for accurate wiring.

The model number on mine is 4100 with serial number of D-13xxx. I think I did the modification on mine in the early nineties at the latest. Anything built after that should time frame should be fine. There's no easy way to tell by looking. The fix was the addition of one small component (maybe a diode or resister) to an existing internal circuit board.

I often use both of the items you show. I've blown three studio strobe power packs by plugging into incorrectly wired sockets on location shoots. The most recent was just a couple of years ago while shooting bank execs in a new building. I think the hot side of the plug had mistakenly been put on the third phase of a three phase system. That puts it at about 190v instead of 120v. One of my Calumet/Bowens packs lit up like it was operational but it refused to fire. Without thinking I plugged in a backup pack. It died immediately too. Good thing I was carrying three!! I hooked it to a completely different circuit and all was well. I should have known better. I did the same thing to an old Novatron unit years earlier. It took me a while to figure out why the modeling light was so bright and the strobe was recycling at about twice it's normal speed. That pack died shortly afterwards.

That little tester is small and inexpensive. It belongs in every location shooters kit.

Hey thanks for that Bob & Peter, The Beseler arrived today in perfect shape. Only a little dust on the lens, it came wit han extra flash tube and some other spare parts. The bellows and rail design leaves¬ more than ample room to clear the battery bulge on a D3¬ series camera as well as a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark 2 and Mark 3.¬ The only thing missing is a sync cord. The model number is 4102 and the serial number is 11##, so I think it is a later version than Bob's. It even looks to have an upgraded , maybe even new, cooling fan.

Given that these things are old tech and likely to have a high sync voltage (yeah, I know Nikons are rated for 250v sync but why risk it?) my plan all along has been to sync the flash via one of my Pocketwizard sets. The sync connection on the unit looks similar to¬ a mini-phone connection but is narrower in diameter so it will require a custom mini-mini-phone to mini-phone cable to work with the Pocketwizards.¬ I'll make a trip to Radio Shack for that tomorrow. .

I made a quick test tonight using the D3X and the tungsten light and the initial test looks very good .¬ ¬ I still haven't decided whether or not tethering¬ the D3X t o the Mac will make sense.

It works¬ well. I'm impressed. In addition to the 1/8" to 3/32" inch miniphone adapter ( $8.00) I had to add a 3 stop (0.9) Rosco ND filter ($16.00 for a 20x24 inch sheet)¬ in the filter drawer to work at¬ f/8 & ISO 100. Now to be really picky I'll actually buy a roll of Velvia or Provia 100F or Ektachrome and shoot the Colorchecker, find a local (Atlanta) pro lab that still processes E-6, and do the DNG calibration thing. But¬ for my first attempt the color is really close and it is great to be able to make 139mb TIFFs¬ (pro Photo or Joe Holmes Chrome Space 100) 16 bpc TIFFs using the D3x.

I used the D3X version of Live View and zoomed in 4 steps to check critical focus with the lens at f/4.

Two caveats:

1) the slides hence forth are going to have to be ultra clean. Not having Digital ICE is a bummer but I can live with it given the time savings. .

Good even exposure across the frame , center to edges and corners.I am using the D3X at IS0100, camera in manual exposure mode, lens at f/8, shutter at 1/200. I had to add a single layer of 0.9ND to the filter drawer of the Beseler. No filtration in the beseler other than that. I am shooting tethered into Lightroom v/2.3 via Nikon Capture Control. The D3X is set up for 14 bit per channel lossless compressed NEFS. My lightroom settings are Black clipping point at 2, linear tone curve, Sharpening at 80/1.0/49/16 and for calibration Camera Neutral. I made a preset for this so I can batch apply. Each iamge (right now) needs a custom WB and with some images I need to use the Recovery slider in Lightroom. So far the results are very, very good. I fine focused the camera using Live View in Nikon Capture Control so that I could see the image on my 20" display. Fro mexposure to the image opening in Lightroom, it takes about 2-3 minutes.

After shutting down the camera, Capture Control 2, and lightroom¬ last night I returned to making dupes this afternoon. For some reason, my exposure to processed to archived times have been reduced substantially It now takes only 40-45 seconds per slide. The files are 6048 x 4032 pixels.

A bit more about my set up: The computer is a 2.16ghz Core 2 Duo iMAc with 3GB Ram installed. I am working tethered. The iamges first go startight to a temporary folder called "watched" on my desktop, and Lightroom 2.3 is set up to import from this folder to a more permanent location on a 4TB Western Digital ShareSpace NAS storage device setup for RAID 5. The ShareSpace connects to the iMAc wirelessly via an Apple Airport Extreme base station (the current model. My OS is OS X 10.5.6.

It should be much faster. I think you're hitting the combination of hit and miss Mac USB drivers and less than great tethering software from Nikon on the Mac side. With a Canon 5D in a similar setup, times are around 6 to 7 seconds. That's using a similar Lightroom setup with images going to a wired network drive. A wireless connection is slower but not that much slower. Taking Lightroom out of the mix and shooting to a local drive takes 3 to 4 seconds to see a large preview in Bridge. And this is on a well aged 2.0 GHZ dual G5 running 10.5.6

My first posting - I've just picked-up a Beseler Dual Mode Slide Duplicator with the intention of connecting my Pentax K10 and archiving family negatives & slides to a digital RAW format. It's missing a bulb though (although the flash works) so I'm waiting for one to be delivered before I can try it out.According to the instruction manual the "variable contrast controller" is used to compensate for the undesirable characteristic of increased contrast when shooting with film - does this also apply with digital shooting? If so do you compensate in Photoshop rather than use the controller?

I can't imagine any need for the variable contrast feature with digital. It essentially worked like a slight pre-fog of film would be used to reduce contrast when making film dupes. Instead of actually fogging the film it used fiber optic to pipe light from the filtered light source to a partially silvered mirror in front of the lens such that it was added to the image as overall base exposure. The cool part was that it was exactly the same color as your filtered exposure light source... and you could turn it up and down with a separate control. Very cool with film. It meant you could use a traditional slide film and get results much like the special purpose lower contrast duping films. Pretty much useless with digital. I wouldn't even attach it to your lens. Just shoot raw and process the files out to whatever tonal range suits your needs.

about 11.5 to 13MB per raw file. Much smaller than yours but that shouldn't account for that much difference in speed. It takes about three seconds from the snap of the shutter until the file is on the computer (via USB). I'm then viewing the raw with a much older/slower computer than you're using. I recently did a demo for someone using the same setup as I usually shoot except substituting a Digital Rebel (I don't recall with one but it was at least a couple of models back). I got tethering times much more like what you're seeing even though the files were much smaller than than my 5D files. I'd almost certainly chalk it up to flaky USB drivers with that particular camera. There are a few Canons that tether extremely slowly when used with Macs and are very speedy on Windows. Other Canons (the 5D is one) are equally fast on either platform. The USB drivers are the issue. Mac USB drivers tend to be less than great at times. I have a feeling you're running into that (if in fact you're using USB). Does a D3X tether over USB or Firewire? If you have the option to use Firewire I'd use that and see if speeds don't improve. In theory there should be relatively little difference. In practice its often a huge difference.

"Does a D3X tether over USB or Firewire? If you have the option to use Firewire I'd use that and see if speeds don't improve. In theory there should be relatively little difference. In practice its often a huge difference."

Sorry to take so long to get back here. It has been a busy month. The D3X tethers via USB 2.0 and there is the entire OS X vs. Nikon software issue as well. Also don't forget that my chain was D3X>nikon Capture control> watched folder> out to an external hard drive drive (a Western Digital ShareSpace NAS connected to the iMac (2.16GHz/ 3Gb RAM) via Airport Extreme into Lightroom 2.3 -- so all of that long loop might have made the times longer than one might expect .

To answer your question re the mighty D3X: it tethers via USB 2.0 I will startthe project back up this week with Canon EOS cameras --1Ds Mk2 and 1D Mk 3 as well.